Analysts say west’s action in Middle East could lead jihadists to stay in Britain rather than travel abroad
- The Observer, Sunday 28 September 2014 07.00 AEST
The internal dynamics of the Syrian civil war were less exciting to many potential British jihadists than a conflict between Isis and the west. “Now that [air strikes] are happening, you can see people are more turned on by the west versus Islam conflict, more excited than when the west was a passive participant,” he said.
The MCB said that, although polls showed widespread public support for air strikes, these sentiments were not shared by British Muslims.
Khan said: “Last night a spokesperson for MCB was chairing an event with about 500 Muslims. They did a straw poll with the audience there and then. They put it to the people: how many would be in favour of air strikes? Three people put their hands up. The bombing itself will only create more hatred, ultimately there will be civilian casualties as well. It will feed into the narrative of Isis.”
On the security front, Neumann said the latest intervention in Iraq would pose new logistical challenges for intelligence agencies. “The problem is that you are dealing with several hundred people. It becomes a capacity problem,” he said. “One cannot follow that many people day and night. The problem is that if you do a relatively low-cost operation, take a big knife and behead someone on the spur of the moment, it’s very difficult to stop.”
Sources say they have no intelligence that a specific terrorist attack is planned against the UK, but fear persists that the most likely form of attack will be low-tech and unsophisticated.
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